


The Weight of Existence

by dollyboy



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, M/M, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 05:54:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5956153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollyboy/pseuds/dollyboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the edge of all things coming to an end, Jean meets someone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weight of Existence

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a quick thing because I wanted to prove myself I could still write short, quick drabbles that are longer than 100 words and actually finish them. It's an idea I actually sent to another person but since I like these kinds of things, I wanted to try and write it myself too.
> 
> Here's my [tumblr](https://dollyb0y.tumblr.com/).

The water under the bridge runs dark and violent, the waves sure to swallow a person whole were they stupid enough to fall.

Jean wonders how many people they’ve already swallowed; how many before him chose to take their faith in their own hands instead of waiting for the inevitable. The air smells like wet ground, like mud, like nothing Jean would want to be as the last smell he’ll ever get to experience.

He places his hands firmly on the railing, the metal cold to his touch. He hesitates, and it begins from the tips of his fingers, runs up his arms and makes his stomach twist painfully. No nervousness he ever went through in his life even compares to this; no nervousness ever made him so desperate or anxious. He takes a deep breath but it does nothing, it doesn’t even fill his lungs.

For a brief second he considers turning around and running, only there is nowhere left to run anymore.

He jumps, braces his weight on his arms, and swings a leg over the railing. For a moment he just sits there, one leg on the other side, the other one still safely closer to the ground.

The waves sound louder from here, and the air feels colder, on the wrong side of the bridge, the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up.

He tries to swing his other leg over the railing, too, tries to will his body to work, but the part in his brain controlling his movements refuses.

His leg won’t move. It keeps hanging idly, pathetically reaching towards the safety on the other side, towards the solid ground. The static hum of the water underneath him sounds like some sort of twisted lullaby by now, creating a false sense of security; a picture of a better tomorrow.

He tries to move his leg, tries to pull it over the railing.

It doesn’t move, and now, neither do his hands. They’re clinging tightly to the cold metal that’s slowly warming under his sweating palms, and his lungs are starting to disobey, too. The air, the smell of it, it fills his weakening lungs, but it refuses to come out, and he’s suffocating.

He knows it. Rather than drown, he’s going to suffocate on the perfectly fresh air, the air that won’t surround him much longer anyway. The drum of his heart covers the soft calls of the waves, it rings in his ear until it’s the only thing he can hear anymore.

But before the panic blinds him or drops him unconscious, there’s another sound that suddenly loosens the iron grip on his lungs, clears his head.

“Hey.” It starts innocently enough, and Jean has to turn his head a few times before he can not only locate the caller, but also himself. The guy walks to him until he can make eye contact with Jean. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt anything.” Jean scoffs, and his hands relax against the hand rail.

“No, by all means,” he shakes his head, rolls his eyes, the whole situation unbearably tragicomic as it is. “It’s not like I’m in a hurry or anything.”

“So I guess we had the same idea?” When Jean’s eyebrows knit together and he tilts his head to the side like a confused puppy, the guy points at him, makes a circle with his finger, his eyebrows rising.

“Oh,” Jean catches the drift, looks down at himself. “Uh, yeah, I guess so.”

“Mind if I join you there?”

“If I said no, would it stop you?”

“I’m not gonna be an asshole about it.” He shrugs easily, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jacket. He looks surprisingly unconcerned, given the situation; relaxed, even. He’s even smiling, and there’s no way Jean chooses to spend the last of his minutes alone. To make a point, he scoots backwards, to make room even if there’s plenty of it.

“Well, why the fuck not.”

 

“Do you know how long it’s still gonna be?” The silence filled with nothing but the singing of the waves can’t have lasted longer than five minutes, but each second is like a nail to his coffin, and it’s getting awfully claustrophobic in there. “I didn’t bring a clock.”

“Why not?” the guy asks, his eyes on the sky, legs swinging freely over certain death. Jean can’t look up, not if he wants to stay relatively sane, so he stares at the rumbling water.

“Because I thought it’d be easier this way.”

“Yeah,” the guy agrees with a murmur. “Me too. But uh, can’t be longer than an hour now.” There’s a violent grab in the pit of Jean’s stomach; he almost bends in two with the force of it, almost throws up his last supper.

“Fuck,” he whispers, his mouth so dry he can barely swallow in between words. “An hour, huh.”

“It’s not gonna get any easier.” Maybe he sees the wild desperation hanging on Jean’s shoulders, because he adds quickly, “sorry.”

“I know,” Jean mumbles. “I just—I’m not ready for this.”

“So why did you choose this, then?” The guy waves his hand vaguely, and he could be talking about anything, but Jean catches on quicker this time.

“Because,” Jean stops to take a breath, forces the air in his lungs, _keeps_ it there for a while. “I—I googled, the easiest ways to kill yourself. I didn’t exactly have access to sleeping pills or shit, and I—”

“They were giving away all kinds of free crap at the medical center. Even euthanasias.”

“I know, but I, uh, I didn’t want anyone to know. Y’know? I wanted to, uh, to…” He trails off, unable to finish the sentence. His eyes, dry in his skull, have long stopped seeing anything. He knows the water is still rushing under them, he can still hear the force with which it travels, but he can’t really see it. He shrugs. “So, uh, drowning seemed the easiest.”

The guy laughs at him. He honest to god throws his head back and lets out a loud, obnoxious laugh, one that echoes from the pit of his lungs, like Jean just told the funniest joke he ever heard in his life.

It’s stupid, but Jean can’t help the corners of his mouth turning up, the laughter making him chuckle, too.

“Sorry,” the guy says when he finally catches his breath, wipes a tear from the corner of his eye with the back of his hand. He sighs deeply before he continues. “I just, well, I just never thought I’d hear someone call drowning _easy_.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think I’d ever say it, either.” Jean’s still grinning whether he realises it or not. “I’ve never been suicidal or anything.”

“Funny how we act under different circumstances, huh?” the guy cracks a smile of his own, and it’s _the_ most comforting thing Jean has seen in the past month or so. The last time he smiled, it could be a year or it could be a decade, doesn’t make a difference. It’s been one, long, joyless month, but at the same time, the time has never melted away from his grip as fast as it has now.

“I wouldn’t call it funny, but yeah, you’re right.” The guy’s eyes twinkle, holding millions of stories to tell no doubt, and under _different circumstances_ …

Well, it doesn’t matter now.

“What’s your biggest regret?” he asks the guy, keeps his gaze on his face as it scrunches up in contemplation.

“I—you know what, why don’t we, um, how about, what’s the best thing that ever happened to you?” he turns to look at Jean, and he’s still ever so calm. Jean wonders if it’s just what happens before the storm. “How ‘bout we don’t think about what could’ve been but instead—”

“What has been,” Jean finishes his sentence, and the guy’s face lights up in delight. His smile widens, and there’s a very telling warm splash in Jean’s chest.

“Exactly.” He nods in Jean’s direction. “You go first.”

“I dunno,” he answers truthfully. “Not trying to be depressing or anything but…”

“Fine, I’ll go first, give you some time to think.” The guy hums under his breath, his face scrunches up again. Jean finds it cute, attractive even.

He might fall in love 45 minutes before he dies, but at least he won’t die completely alone.

“When I was five, I saved my sister from drowning. Fifteen years later, I got to witness her space shuttle launching in person. Got to wave her goodbye on the spot.” There’s a deep silence, one that Jean doesn’t dare to disturb. Shivers run down his spine, and he thinks about all the great moments in his life, none that include making heroes or saving people.

“That’s pretty awesome,” he murmurs, keeps his voice quiet. “Why aren’t you with your sister now?”

“Because she’s still there,” the guy says, looks up to the sky with a serious face, and Jean follows his gaze this time.

It’s getting darker, the clouds have turned grey; like enormous puffs of ash floating in the sky. They look like they’re trying to rain down on Earth, quietly melting horizontally.

Jean casts his eyes down as quickly as he can, but the damage is done. The sleeping panic in him awakes and when it grabs him by his neck, the touch icy cold deep to his spine, he can barely keep himself from falling off the railing.

The waves are almost welcoming with their non-stop rumbling, but the guy grabs him before he falls forward.

“ _Jesus_ ,” he exclaims, his fist twisting in the fabric of Jean’s hoodie, as if they weren’t both here to die anyway. “Come on, not without me you don’t.” He chuckles stiffly at his own joke, and Jean smiles through the blinding fear.

“I’m not ready,” he breathes out, his voice trembling with every word. It doesn’t stop there; his whole body is trembling now, and the waves underneath them look more violent; darker. “I’m not—”

“I know, no one is. Look, tell me about the best day in _your_ life, yeah?”

Jean chooses the first memory to pop in his mind, be it best or be it worst, it’s there, vividly, and it’s enough to take him back in time for a while.

“When I was a kid, I got bullied in school by this one jerk. I wasn’t the only one, but for some reason he picked on me more than anyone else, y’know? Like something about me pissed him off just so fucking badly.” The guy lets go of his hoodie after making sure he’s not falling without a warning. His touch lingers, makes Jean’s skin crawl in a way it always does when he craves for more. “So we grow older, after high school our ways part and yeah I get over it, you know, but it never really leaves me, right? This asshole made my years living hell in so many ways, and I ain’t no saint, I’m not gonna forgive him for something he never even apologised.”

He bites his lip, tastes the blood from the past, from an old split lip that took a week to heal.

“But then… like, I don’t know, a few years later I run into him. We’re—we’re at this bar, it’s, um, well it’s a gay bar, you know. And he’s a few feet away from me and I immediately recognise his face. He hasn’t changed, just gotten older, like _much_ older. I keep staring at him, waiting for him to notice me, and when he does, he gives this gross fucking smile and walks to me.” Jean licks his lips, tries to get the bitter taste out of his mouth. By now he doesn’t know if it’s the fear or the panic he’s tasting. “And he starts hitting me up, and I play along for a while. He just doesn’t recognise me, at all, he has no idea. The best part is, I know this fucker’s married, right? He’s taken the ring off but I know. And we chat for a bit, I want to make sure he’s really hitting on me and, you know.”

“What an assclown,” the guy clicks his tongue and Jean laughs. He’s ready to confess his love to this guy at this point.

“Yeah, so. So I listen to him for a while, then lean in, and he’s immediately leaning closer with this pathetic look in his eyes, as if I’d touch him with a ten feet pole for any other reason than to push him down a hill. I pull him close and press my lips against his ear and whisper, hey, d’you remember how you used to beat me up and call me a faggot when we were in high school? Yeah? How’s your wife? Does she know you like it up the ass?”

The guy laughs _loudly_ , the sound wolfish and extremely pleased, and he gives Jean a shove on his shoulder for a lack of a better response.

“What—what does he do?” he manages to whimper out, his face looking like it’s about to split open from how he’s grinning so widely.

“His face goes completely white, like he’s seen a ghost, and he walks out of the bar and I never see him again.” Jean shrugs, spreads his hands modestly, and the guy presses his hands together in front of himself, bows to Jean. “And that’s the story of how I to taste the sweet, sweet revenge.”

 

It’s dark now, even Jean can’t pretend anymore; it’s hopelessly dark. He can barely see the guy next to him, can barely make out his silhouette. The seconds have turned to minutes, the minutes are slowly turning into an hour.

“This is it, I s’pose,” the guy speaks, and this time his voice wavers too. His calmness, whether forced or natural, is crumbling now, too, and instead of making Jean feel even worse, it’s comforting him.

40 minutes ago he fell in love and now he doesn’t have to die alone.

“So,” he begins, his throat dry, making his voice crack. “Are we gonna, y’know, jump?”

“I don’t mind either way,” the guy says. His eyes are cast to the starless sky, as far as Jean can tell, and he wonders what the guy meant by ‘she’s still there’.

It’s almost midday. Maybe it really doesn’t matter.

“I know this is stupid but—”

“It can’t be stupider than dying.”

“Can I hold your hand?” He doesn’t say a word but instead slides closer on the railing. Jean has lost any feeling on his ass a long time ago, but his hands, they feel everything. They feel fingers sliding over his, entwining against the cold metal.

“We should kiss, too, I mean…” the guy begins shyly, which is ridiculous, but so endearing.

“No, definitely, we should.” He searches for the guy’s face in the darkness, another surge of hopeless panic washing over him when he can’t make out his features, but then he thinks he sees a smile.

And he can definitely see the guy leaning closer, and he hopes that he won’t somehow miss the last kiss he’s ever going to have.

Their lips search for each other only for a second or two, before they press together, and Jean rewinds the last hour again and again in his mind, tries to remember every detail as he breathes in the person next to him; breathes out the panic and fear in his lungs and calms down.

“Hey,” their faces still held close to each other, he whispers. “What’s your name?”

“Eren,” he whispers back.

“I’m Jean.”

“Nice to meet you, Jean.”

The solid ground holding everything together under them trembles, their fingers entwining together tighter, the waves changing direction with ear-deafening rumble.

And the last thing Jean sees, Eren’s face in a rapidly brightening light that paints his smile behind his closed lids.


End file.
